One More Cast: Troubling news warrants Asian carp action

August 10, 2012|By Chris Engle, Staff Writer

HT - Chris Engle

As far as Asian carp are concerned, the Great Lakes/Mississippi River Interbasin Study is futile.

The years-long, in-depth study of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, headed by the Army Corps of Engineers, put a price tag on the commercial and recreational fishing industries in those areas. It has also pinned down several potential routes for dozens of invasive species, including bighead and silver carp, to move between the basins.

The study aims to figure out what’s at risk and what can be done to stop that movement of nuisance species through Chicago-area waterways, and high-jumping, sensational Asian carp have been the poster child for the effort. Along with the Army Corps’ electric barrier, ideas to halt the passage of Asian carp and other invaders have run the gamut from the practically impossible (giant earthen dams) to the insanely impractical (bubble curtains, sound barriers, freezing the river solid, even 24/7 poisoning of the river).

Asian carp around Chicago are off the hook now because water samples collected in Lake Erie have tested positive for the fish. Some experts believe that of all the generally cold and deep Great Lakes, extraordinarily shallow and warm Lake Erie grants bighead and silver carp the best chance to thrive.

Six of 417 water samples collected in August 2011 tested positive for environmental DNA from Asian carp. Those samples came from Sandusky Bay in Ohio and Maumee Bay in the Toledo area. The DNA came from fish mucous, excrement or scales and is not necessarily proof of a carp population, but it’s certainly an indicator.

A United States Geological Survey report listed the Maumee River, which dumps into Maumee Bay, as one of 22 rivers in the Great Lakes basin with potential spawning habitat for Asian carp.

On top of that, Lake Erie had one of its biggest algae blooms ever recorded last year. Algae was so widespread it could be seen from space. Did I mention carp eat algae?

Carp, check. Spawning habitat, check. Food, check. Now what? To put it simply, this is bad news, and the Asian carp debate has just flipped on its head.

All the attention that the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois has been getting for keeping its shipping and sewage waterway open should be shared with Michigan. And the debate has just shot to international status — Lake Erie is shared with Canada, and so is the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River. In fairness, all this talk about electric barriers and bubble curtains should shift to that waterway where there’s currently no defense whatsoever.

If Asian carp take over the region via this route, it wouldn’t be the first time a non-native species has done so. Sea lampreys, zebra and quagga mussels, milfoil and many other species both benign and harmful have made their way into the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence Seaway, the man-made path that connects the Great Lakes to a worldwide web of invaders.

Who knows how the Asian carp DNA got where it did in Lake Erie — but if it came from live fish, we’re in big trouble.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is now teamed up with Ohio and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service “to assess the current status of bighead and silver carp within western Lake Erie bays and select tributaries,” according to a DNR press release. I’ve kept a pretty close eye on the Asian carp issue for a while now, and this sentence is the scariest one I’ve read.

This discovery proves that opponents of closing the Chicago Area Waterway System were somewhat right in their argument: There’s plenty of other ways Asian carp can get into the Great Lakes.

Who knows? It might have only taken one unknowing angler and one bucket of minnows with a few baby Asian carp in the mix to infect Lake Erie with another invasive species. Years of work and billions of dollars spent to seal off the Chicago waterway will have been wasted, at least in regard to keeping carp out, all because of one hapless fisherman.

We should definitely continue trying to keep invasive species from moving between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. In the meantime, we should consider doing the same in the St. Clair and Detroit rivers.

But if their DNA is already here, we might just be buying ourselves a little time before an all-out Asian carp invasion happens.

— Chris Engle is an avid outdoorsman and outdoor columnist for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at 732-1111 or cengle@gaylordheraldtimes.com.